[Vicious Love]

RedRover said:
Vicious Love: Impossible to implement? Certainly impossible to mod in Dom2, we just don’t have the tools. But are they impossible for Dom3? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Point taken.

Global Haze: You are right. I forgot to add a benefit. How about +1 morale bonus for friendly amphibious and aquatic units?

I thought Second Sun and Global Haze cancelled each other out? 50 gems may not be all that much, on a global mojo scale, but I still can't imagine anyone shelling out 50 water gems for no more than a +1 morale bonus to the rank-and-file.
At any rate, evocation 6 sounds good.

Don’t you think the Water-gem-generating Maelstrom at L8 is sufficient to draw the aquatic nation player up this list?
-If not, do you think Maelstrom should be a lower level?

Speaking of shelling out, you'd think Maelstrom would be some sort of incentive, but you forget that
A) Astral pearls will always be more valuable than water gems, even with these new spells available. I'm not saying astral needs to be nerfed, I'm simply saying it's more powerful. It's... thematic. Not all paths were created equal.
B) Clams can be produced long, long before a Maelstrom can be evoked, and yield a comparable return on investment.
C) Clams cannot be dispelled, and are unlikely to be lost. Actually managing to lose clams and researchers is one of the first signs of being doomed, doomed, doomed. Unless you've simply forgotten to research domes. Not a single one of which is an evocation.

Obviously, Maelstrom is worth casting, if you've already researched evocation 7 or 8 for unrelated reasons, but it would probably be unwise to squander one's research on a school which can't even summon Queens of Elemental Water.

Acid Spells: I do think that the acid-series spells (Spray, Bolt, Rain, Storm) might be used more if the Fire element was removed. In my own (solo) play, I’ve certainly never had occasion to seek them out, though I have tried them out of curiosity before going back to more efficient spells.
-Are they as much a dead-end in multiplayer games?

I imagine Caelian high seraphs and R'lyeh's starspawn make good acid flingers, what with the combo of water magic and a random. Removing the fire would take away the spells' STYLE, it would, and not lightly does one impoverish Dom 2's groove.
Besides, I'm told they're downright awesome. No resistance protects against them, and damage is more than halfway decent. Remove the fire, and you give water an immense advantage in precisely the area in which it should be one of the weakest paths. You also make fire just an ickle bit less valuable as a battlefield path, which is an awfully counterintuitive thing to do. If anything, we should be enhancing the power of burnination yet further. Or teaching anathemants to actually hit the friggin' target, but that's another issue altogether. Bloody Abysian precision.

After all, swamp-dweller bile breath is acidic and swamps tend to be water-themed (at least much more than fire-themed).

Nope, it's natural. And wet, as well, depending on whether you spit it out or summon some beasties to spit it out for ya. Pay attention!

Rust Mist (Evo 2): How about making this E2W1 spell a W2E1 spell instead, shifting it from the Earth camp into the Water camp?

Works for me. Wouldn't even deprive earth of all that much.

Now a question for the experienced MP’ers:
In all your MP games that included Atlantis, in what percentage of them would it have been feasible (not necessarily smart) for the Atlantian player to drop 150 Water gems into a single spell?

Not an experienced player, but I'd have to say "The ones in which they don't blow all their water income on clams and Water Queens". Anyone ever seen that happen?